Stairway To Heaven – Paekakariki Escarpment Track!

As we move into the beginnings of winter in New Zealand, I’ve been more inclined to keeping myself warm indoors because let’s face it, the wet and cold aren’t exactly my favourite conditions to be outdoors. Yesterday however, we made an exception for this particular walking trail along the Wellington coast and despite ending up with frozen ears, the track was as beautiful as what we hoped; definitely a track worth doing!

We first got to know about the Paekakariki Escarpment Track through an online feature video and considering how easily accessible it is from where we live, we wondered why we never heard of it sooner!

It’s less than an hour’s drive up north from Wellington city and it’s a trail following the railway line that gives you an amazing birds eye view of the coast throughout the entire journey. The entire one-way walk is a total of 10 kilometres and you can choose to start from north-south or vice versa. We just parked our car at Pukerua Bay Train Station and took the train back from Paekakariki after completing the walk.

It isn’t a difficult walk to do; signs are clearly written along the footpath and it was overall very well-maintained. The best part was that I got to enjoy the view of the coastal terrain throughout the entire walk, although there was the occasional worry that I might get blown away by the freezing wind!

When we first discovered this trail, what initially caught our attention was its several suspension bridges along the walk that gave it the name ‘Stairway to Heaven‘.

For someone like myself who’s afraid of heights, I’m not so sure if I would cross this again on a windy day, heh.

I would recommend doing this track if you’re looking for a walk that’s considerably easy with stunning landscapes to admire. Paekakariki is also a small tourist town on the outskirts of Wellington so you could stick around to explore or have a good feed at a cafe before heading off. Train services arrive every half hour at the station so there’s less worry about heading back to your starting point.

Click here for more information about the track and there’s more of my other adventures under the ‘Hiking‘ tab if you’re into that sorta fun.